Soaking in the Shanghai Summer

As the sun rose through the haze over the city’s massive skyscrapers, Shanghai quickly came alive to the tune of angry taxi horns, busy jackhammers and 20 million people maneuvering through the masses to reach their destinations.

Under the heavy heat of Shanghai’s summer, the fusion of smells and sounds bombarded the senses. Fresh blood-red crayfish lined the table of a street vendor while massive machines screamed into the night as they sculpted the city’s unending construction projects.

The international metropolis is a must see for any tourist, and for four weeks this summer, I was fortunate to explore its bustling city streets, hidden alleyways and massive shopping districts.

For the past year, my uncle Patrick Klepcyk has lived in Shanghai and worked as the associate director for business development for the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. After he gave me the green light to visit, I began the process of arranging the proper vaccinations and paperwork, and I soon found myself on a 15 hour flight to the People’s Republic of China.

After landing in Shanghai Pudong International Airport, two government officials wearing bio-hazard safety suits boarded the plane to meticulously check the temperature of each passenger, a precaution the Chinese government implemented to prevent an outbreak of the H1N1 flu.

For the first time in my life, I was not just leaving my home in Ohio, I was leaving America to experience Chinese culture in the country’s largest city, and I quickly realized I was not only a foreigner in a communist nation, but in the eyes of many local Shanghainese, I was also an alien from the western world.

From June 13 to July 12, I called the apartment complex on the corner of Puming Road and Pudian Road my home away from home. Forty-one floors above the crowded streets below, I could stare out over the Huangpu River, which divides the city into two regions: eastern Pudong and western Puxi.

A half hour walk from the iconic Oriental Pearl Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center, my uncle’s apartment was located near the heart of Pudong, the new face of Shanghai that rose quickly from farm lands during the 1990s to become the poster of China’s rapidly growing economy.

Puxi is home to Shanghai’s history as an international trading and business hub. After the First Opium War in the mid-19th century, the British, French and American “concessions” or settlements were formed in Puxi and westerners began utilizing the city for business. A walking tour through the French Concession, or the river front area known as The Bund, allowed visitors to see how western influences helped shape the architecture and culture of Puxi.

Each morning I woke to the sound of massive barges sounding their horns as they maneuvered up and down the river, driving Shanghai’s reputable shipping industry.

After boiling some water for instant coffee, it was down to the streets and off to that day’s destination.

Amidst the reckless taxi drivers was a stream of bicycles, mopeds and motorcycles whose drivers ranged from garbage collectors and scrappers to businesspeople and mothers with children riding comfortably and seemingly unafraid of the frantic traffic rush.

Besides the basic “hello” and “thank you,” I knew nothing of the city’s Mandarin language; however, traveling throughout the massive metropolis on my own was fairly straightforward. English signage in the city’s elaborate underground system of metro lines provided easy access to most destinations and navigating them quickly became a familiar task.

While the metro served as the main source of inexpensive transportation, many buildings with their unique architecture doubled as landmarks to gain my bearings. The half hour walk from the apartment complex to the Dongchang metro station was a daily routine filled with familiar sites and sounds of local Shanghainese going about their daily lives.

Early in the morning, a local barber would set up his lawn chair on the sidewalk of Pucheng Road, napping or smoking cigarettes between his local customers who would stop by for a quick shave and haircut.

Several feet from the barber, businesswomen would stop on their way home from work and wait patiently for an old man to repair their shoes at his makeshift shop.

Amidst all of the sidewalk services, tables, chairs, hot plates and wash basins would appear from the small shops and restaurants to feed the locals.

Children played in store fronts as mothers and grandmothers brought out stools and mounds of vegetables to prepare for meals as they sat on the sidewalk.

In the evenings, small markets would form outside the local grocery store on Pudian Road. Locals would take their picks of fresh fruits and vegetables, choose a freshly caught fish or buy a live chicken that could be killed and de-feathered on the street before taking it home.

But as the simple lifestyles of Shanghai locals continued on the sidewalks and back alleyways near the apartment complex, the city’s enormous skyscrapers jutted forth from the ground as a testament to China’s rapidly changing society.

Beyond the street market and shoe repairman of Pudian Road was an entire city ready to be explored from the vast winding labyrinth of underground shops to the world’s highest observatory overlooking the city’s endless skyline.